The Chair for Materials Science and Engineering has been focused on the quantitative, multi-scale analysis of material microstructures since its establishment. The elements of microstructure, such as point defects, dislocations, and interfaces, largely determine the properties of materials. The chair investigates the formation and changes of microstructures during materials processing, the influence of microstructure on important material properties, and the changes in microstructures under load. The goal is to understand critical, fundamental processes governing these phenomena. This understanding is used to optimize microstructures in materials development. Our experimental work is complemented by the application of finite element modeling, simulations of dislocation reactions, accompanying calculations for electron microscopy and quantitative evaluation of microstructures as well as thermodynamic and kinetic calculations to analyze phase transformations. Advanced, multi-scale or multi-phenomena simulation techniques are applied in close collaboration with our partners from Interdisciplinary Centre for Advanced Materials Simulation (ICAMS), Max Planck Institute for Sustainable Materials and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.